Here are some ideas and practical tips to help you make sure that everyone who needs to know, knows about what you’re planning!
When planning and promoting an event, it’s good to use a mixture of offline and online promotion, social media, email marketing, print advertising, and word of mouth. You need to use every resource available to you. This post has been recently updated in 2023 to include the latest tips for promoting your event.
- Start early: You can seldom start too early. You can build up some hype with very few confirmed details and start collecting emails for a newsletter or Facebook fans. This is great, so that when you do have some details to drop, there is an audience already there and waiting for it.
- Define your target audience: Identify your target audience for the event; who are they, what is their age, family status, where do they live, and what do they do? Tailoring your promotion strategies to their interests and preferences will give you more success.
- Write a press release: Keep it no more than 1 page. It needs to be descriptive, with all the main details, but not dull, please!
- Send the press release to local and related magazines and newspapers along with a photo or event logo for them to publish. Find the a specific email, for example the staff who feature events, not just info@
- Run a contest asking users to tag, like and comment on a post on Facebook or Instagram to win an event pack, such as a t-shirt or free tickets.
- Produce promo videos to quickly let people know what to expect – it creates a big impression.
- Event Hashtags: create a hashtag for the event that staff, influencers and guests can easily use. Make sure it’s easy to spell, reads quickly and is not already in use.
- Sponsorship: Look at partnerships and sponsorships to increase the event’s exposure and reach a broader audience. You can do this by creating partnership packages with a simple pricing structure. You can also target businesses and organisations with a similar target audience to your event and invite them to partner.
- Preferably you’d have a series of social media videos; you can cover the day’s schedule and a mini video of each speaker/guest/artist.
- Follow related people on Twitter. Generally, the more people you follow, the more you will follow back, so if it’s a gig, then follow music lovers in the area, gig promoters, music news, bands etc.
- Contact any local bloggers or influencers related to your industry – e.g. fashion or dance – ask them to come along and cover the event. Try to personalise any messages and research them well before hands so you don’t look spammy. You could offer free tickets to the event with the hope that they create content or pay them for a certain amount of posts, with a set brief, to hype it beforehand.
- Ensure your website has a very easy-to-find tickets page and that the home page is written and designed for guests, not just gaining staff. If you don’t have a website, use a service like Eventbrite for easy ticketing.
- Keep blogging on your website with the latest news – not only is it good for guests, but it’s also good for Google (Google will see you have an active site and push you further up the rankings).
- Ask any speakers/performers to write a short guest post about their involvement or themselves for your blog.
- If your performers or speakers are not big on writing, then interview them – and post the transcription as a blog post instead. You can also post these interviews on audio streaming and podcast services like Soundcloud or Podbean.
- Email your subscriber list – you can do this once every few weeks before the event, as long as you have exciting news for them and don’t spam them too often!
- Produce lots of graphics – for use on the website and social media. Of course, you need the main poster, logo and leaflets, but it’s also good to have supporting graphics to post on social media, for example, an announcement of news or a ticket promotion.
- Make the graphics fit each social media platform. So landscape for Facebook, vertical for Instagram stories etc.
- Don’t make the graphics yourself if you’re not a designer. Even if the event is exceptionally well organised – amateur design will make it look worse and can put people off. Using a paid version of Canva is another option to create a cohesive graphic design series.
- Consider paid advertising. There are benefits of paid advertising using platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn Ads to promote the event. However, getting professional advice or paying for this service is always best, or you can waste money easily.
- Get some photos taken for online use – e.g. behind the scenes / the venues / the staff / any pre-show activities that look interesting. Social posts with images get way more views and clicks.
- Get leaflets printed and distributed around town – get as much help as possible with this (it’s a tiring job)!
- Ask to put posters in local shops/cafes.
- Track down any related online forums that would be ok with you posting there about your event.
- Get some staff/volunteers with leaflets outside the venue and around the local on the day of the event.
- During the event, keep posting on social media with updates of what’s happening to generate excitement throughout the day. You can schedule some posts in advance, but you will also want to go live during the day and post real-time reactions and unforgettable moments.
- Make sure you photograph and video the event – for post-event promotion. Preferably hire a professional for this, as the images will be great to use as promotion for future events and boost credibility.
- Produce a post-event press release – recap what happened and send it (along with a few great photos) to any press/news interested in posting the review.
- Produce a general promo video from the footage captured on the day – it’ll be invaluable for any new events you hold in the future.
